but that way I'm not below 40 energy and lose quite a big chunk of the energy TF gives me.Shred costing 45, so I'm at 55 then I regen about 18 energy in GCD from ravage putting me at 73, TF then giving me 60 meaning I lose 33 energy (I think your max energy increases after you giving you the energy from what I can tell in logs). Providing I get no OOC procs. This rotation just leads to tonnes of energy loss.

maxmaxima wrote:So, basically all we do is plonk a ravage every TF? After rake ofc. Is that all the 4pcs gives?

This is just specific to the opener. You shouldn't always use ravage straight after TF; for example when you TF you may be high on energy, using Ravage would then cause you to energy cap which would be bad. So it'd be better to Shred then Ravage. You may also be on 5CP when you use TF, it'd be better to either FB if Rip's not about to fall off then Ravage.

You also need to be very careful when you hit TF after a feral charge. If you use the ravage you got from the FC, and then hit TF/Berserk before the GCD is finished, the T13 4p will not proc. It's stupid, but its the case.

Tinderhoof wrote:You also need to be very careful when you hit TF after a feral charge. If you use the ravage you got from the FC, and then hit TF/Berserk before the GCD is finished, the T13 4p will not proc. It's stupid, but its the case.

I noticed something like this but I just thought I had hit TF a tiny fraction before I hit ravage. Good to know.

My only criticism here is that using your second ravage during berserk could cap you on energy. Maybe something like:

FC/FF > Mangle > Rake > Shred > Ravage > TF+cds+Rip > Ravage > Berserk etcThis way you pool back to cap during the ravage GCD making the most of your berserk; although I guess as long as you don't energy cap either way is fine.

Also with this opener, if you can get the first rip up quickly and your one of the many many druids using [Kiril, Fury of Beasts], you could refresh your rip when your prepot+1st Kiril proc are falling off; clipping it at about 8 seconds remaining. While I cannot say I've personally done the math here I have confidence spending 25 energy clipping 30% of a rip ('wasting' 8 energy) to reapply rip with 1200+1070 bonus agi could prove to be a gain in dps.

Mangle->Rake->Shred->Ravage! will waste CPs if you have more than 1 yellow crit (Not a huge deal normally, but this is one situation where you are CP starved since you have neither Rip nor SR up).

Losing 4 seconds of SR uptime (2 sec w/TF ticking all with a potion up, possibly all with Heroism) to gain 2 seconds of Rip uptime is not worth it (Assuming really good gear, the Rip from the correct opener will be applied with more AP due to Kiril/Wrath as well). Assuming nothing crits for both openers, you go to a tradeoff between 5 sec of SR uptime (3 sec w/TF) vs 3 sec of Rip uptime.

The only time energy capping with the correct opener comes into play is if you get clearcasts. The opener you provided will also energy cap if you get a clearcasts, so I'm totally failing to see the improvement. When you don't clearcast, by not casting Rip under the effects of Berserk, you're taking away energy from the Berserk to the tune of 0.75 of a Shred.

Assuming back to back clearcasts in the opener, it's fairly unavoidable to waste energy regardless of what you do, and the loss incurred from capping is inconsequential compared to the damage you inflict on your DPS by trying to guard against it.

Mangle->Rake->Shred->Ravage! will waste CPs if you have more than 1 yellow crit (Not a huge deal normally, but this is one situation where you are CP starved since you have neither Rip nor SR up).

Losing 4 seconds of SR uptime (2 sec w/TF ticking all with a potion up, possibly all with Heroism) to gain 2 seconds of Rip uptime is not worth it (Assuming really good gear, the Rip from the correct opener will be applied with more AP due to Kiril/Wrath as well). Assuming nothing crits for both openers, you go to a tradeoff between 5 sec of SR uptime (3 sec w/TF) vs 3 sec of Rip uptime.

The only time energy capping with the correct opener comes into play is if you get clearcasts. The opener you provided will also energy cap if you get a clearcasts, so I'm totally failing to see the improvement. When you don't clearcast, by not casting Rip under the effects of Berserk, you're taking away energy from the Berserk to the tune of 0.75 of a Shred.

Assuming back to back clearcasts in the opener, it's fairly unavoidable to waste energy regardless of what you do, and the loss incurred from capping is inconsequential compared to the damage you inflict on your DPS by trying to guard against it.

I prefer my opener, its set up so i can put in as many FB's after without having to worry about refreshing anything in between. I wasn't able to get as many FB's out with your opener. i had to refresh SR after my second FB and then had to refresh rake/rip after that by then my berserk had fallen off.

I think my opener works best as i get a 4-5 cp SR off at the start. i don't energy cap and i am still able to get my second ravage in under the TF effect just after i apply my first rip. once my bleeds are up i can usually FB 3-4 times before having to refresh rip which then TF is off CD i can usually pop another FB out under the TF buff and then shortly after using my ravage proc to reapply SR

I prefer my opener, its set up so i can put in as many FB's after without having to worry about refreshing anything in between. I wasn't able to get as many FB's out with your opener. i had to refresh SR after my second FB and then had to refresh rake/rip after that by then my berserk had fallen off.

I think my opener works best as i get a 4-5 cp SR off at the start. i don't energy cap and i am still able to get my second ravage in under the TF effect just after i apply my first rip. once my bleeds are up i can usually FB 3-4 times before having to refresh rip which then TF is off CD i can usually pop another FB out under the TF buff and then shortly after using my ravage proc to reapply SR

If you aren't going to at least listen to advice from one of the people providing his help out of his own generosity, and one of the few that have the knowledge to theorycraft the spec properly, then why even come to the forums?

I prefer my opener, its set up so i can put in as many FB's after without having to worry about refreshing anything in between. I wasn't able to get as many FB's out with your opener. i had to refresh SR after my second FB and then had to refresh rake/rip after that by then my berserk had fallen off.

I think my opener works best as i get a 4-5 cp SR off at the start. i don't energy cap and i am still able to get my second ravage in under the TF effect just after i apply my first rip. once my bleeds are up i can usually FB 3-4 times before having to refresh rip which then TF is off CD i can usually pop another FB out under the TF buff and then shortly after using my ravage proc to reapply SR

If you aren't going to at least listen to advice from one of the people providing his help out of his own generosity, and one of the few that have the knowledge to theorycraft the spec properly, then why even come to the forums?

I took his advice. i tried it and I'm still working on it and i appreciate it greatly but i have my own thoughts on it also and that's why i said i prefer my opener as of. for now that is. i feel comfortable with my opener. I think it has good effect and i was just expressing my thoughts towards it. he didn't exactly explain why mine was incorrect just that it was close. if I'm not allowed to reply with my own thoughts on the subject then i don't know why I'm on these forums either ?

The problem with using something because you "prefer it" when the intent is to min/max is that letting preference determine what you do may not result in min/maxxing. Which is why I made this post; I'm a min/maxxer and I knew that my opener was causing me to lose DPS so I had to change.

I understand that you may not want to change from your current opener, I don't want to change because I have performed my opener so much that I just do it automatically but I will change because otherwise I'm not performing to my up-most potential.

calbrin wrote:I prefer my opener, its set up so i can put in as many FB's after without having to worry about refreshing anything in between. I wasn't able to get as many FB's out with your opener. i had to refresh SR after my second FB and then had to refresh rake/rip after that by then my berserk had fallen off.

I think my opener works best as i get a 4-5 cp SR off at the start. i don't energy cap and i am still able to get my second ravage in under the TF effect just after i apply my first rip. once my bleeds are up i can usually FB 3-4 times before having to refresh rip which then TF is off CD i can usually pop another FB out under the TF buff and then shortly after using my ravage proc to reapply SR

Considering that Rake/Rip and SR all are considerably more energy efficient than Ferocious Bite, I'm failing to see why having to refresh them during Berserk is a problem for encounters that actually last a while. Ferocious Bite's energy efficiency is worse under Berserk due to the cost reduction not being applied to the extra energy component.

Delaying SR/Rip to get more Bites in is questionable at best. Doing so in a manner that does not degrade gracefully in the face of bad RNG is not something that should be recommended as general practice (You push back both SR and Rip vs what I view as correct to begin with. Depending on crit RNG, you will then push back Rip further. The opener I advocate is effectively immune to this due to Predatory Strikes.).

Thanks for the reply yawning. Definitely given me some things to think about. as of now i have no issues with dropping sr/rip or rake during my opener but i will continue working on your method over the next few weeks until i get used to it. hopefully i will see some better numbers

calbrin wrote:Thanks for the reply yawning. Definitely given me some things to think about. as of now i have no issues with dropping sr/rip or rake during my opener but i will continue working on your method over the next few weeks until i get used to it. hopefully i will see some better numbers

No problem. I thought the difference would be obvious but I guess it is somewhat subtle. My mistake for not being more in depth when I responded the first time.

As a side note: Mew does not really have the notion of a opener beyond "prepot, feral charge when entering combat, start auto attacking", because those are the only things that are unique to an opener.

Feral FF is extremely important so FF. Then it Mangles because, Mangle's not up. Rake always has a higher priority than SR so Rake. Can't Rip since it's not at 5 cps, so it SR since that has a higher priority than using a CP generator. Stampede is up and TF is off cooldown so Ravage! to avoid clipping the buff. etc etc etc.

All of these things are things you do normally over the course of an encounter. It's just fairly rare that you're GCD locked.

Is there a significant difference if i use my ravage before applying SR ? eg: ff/fc - mangle - rake - ravage - SR. As i only do this so that my SR is up longer and i don't have to worry about it for some time. other than that i do everything according to your method and it works perfectly.

I would say absolutely none of the above is "significant" in the long run for any fight. However this thread isn't about what's significant, it's about what is most optimal, and it's most optimal to ravage after the sr so that you get your rip and sr up 1 gcd sooner.

Yeah, that's what I thought. At the beginning of the fight your objective is to get everything up as quickly as possible, "everything" being bleeds, FF, and SR. A 5-point SR is only longer, not "better", so at the opener - and only then - it's preferable to have a shorter SR up, just as long as it's up at all. And then move on to Rip.

-Sibylle

"Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious." (Brendan Gill)

Just to be clear, this is mostly my T12 opener being adapted to the new T13 4set, I haven't spent the same amount of effort on the opener this tier.Feral Charge to get free Ravage! which is crucial to get a quick Rip running, Faerie fire for armor debuff, Mangle for 30% more dmg on bleeds and shred, Rake for 20% more bleed dmg and the DoT itself, if I'm not mistaken it should tick 3 times before we refresh Rake making it better than Shred at the time, also if we were to use Shred here, it would hit for 20% less, Mangle and rake combined makes shred hit for 156%, Savage Roar since we need to burn more energy before TF/Berserk, and using it after TF/Berserk would delay it too much since it makes sense to buff Rip with 10% from TF instead of using Savage Roar during the 6 sec TF buff, so then we would have to use SR after Rip, giving us a lot of downtime on SR. Ravage! is used before Shred before TF/berserk since usually you would be a little bit short on energy for the shred, making you wait maybe a half second before you can use it, so using Ravage! there instead is essentially 1 gcd of pooled energy, and then u follow it with a shred to get as close to zero energy as possible, which is not possible with Ravage!, of course, this should only be done if you have heroism on pull, since using Ravage! before Shred is a way to reduce energy capping right after TF/Berserk, especially with T134set where u have to use a Ravage! right after TF/Berserk, being the same as pooling energy for 1 gcd. Without heroism I would use Shred before Ravage! to be guaranteed closer to max energy after the TF. Rip and Rake is applied during the 6 sec TF buff, and Rake had less than 9 secs remaining when it got refreshed, which is a dps increase according to simulations. There is alot more to this depending on how your gear and raid setup is, Im also slightly rusty as i had to raid on an elemental shaman aswell this tier, I mainly bring my Feral for Spine Heroic since they need me to tank the amalgamation.

Would be interesting to put up proper conditions in Mew to simulate http://www.wowhead.com/spell=105847 and start a discussion about the optimal way to burst in a 20 sec window. At the moment im pretty close to what i think i can call optimal burst, but i also have some experimental non-traditional, but promising stuff i want to test thats kinda hard to measure on the go without a simulator, limited to napkin math atm Have about 70k dps with berserk but no pot/hero, Sadly im the guy that puts up FF and Mangle/Trauma.

Do not do the Bolded part at all. After hitting TF/Berserk everything costs half energy. Using a free energy attack when you get an energy boost and all attacks are half damage is a sure way to energy cap you. It's just not worth the chance of wasted energy. You have plenty of time to make sure it gets off under the TF buff. There is no reason not to bleed a little energy before you go for the free attack.